Storage proteins are transported to a special storage compartments in seeds by Golgi dependent or independent pathways depending on the plant species. The aim of this work was to study the sunflower storage protein transport pathway and identified component of the sorting machinery. Immature sunflower seeds were analyzed by subcellular fractionation (using percoll and sucrose gradients) and electron microscopy. The vesicles isolated with percoll, have precursors of 11S globulins, α-TIP, δ-TIP, BiP, and two proteins that have homology to the pumpkin vacuolar sorting receptor PV72. Sucrose isolated vesicles have the same composition than percoll ones, except for the lack of BiP and the presence of only one protein that has reactivity with... |